A FINE CITY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2509, 16 April 1902, Page 72

A FINE CITY.

It was a bright but rather sharp morning, with "a nipping and an eager air" ami occasional showers of hailstones, when. I aefc foot on the mainland of Canada. But the temperature soon rose. It had not been cold at sea, and before night, when walking at a reasonable pace, it was rather more comfortable to bo without an overcoat than with one. Vancouver is a fine city, and its people are with reason proud of tneir place of habitation. We point to Dunedin, grown so large and prosperous in half a, century, as a proof of the good stuff of which the colonists are built ; but the citizens of Vancouver will tell you that 14 or 15 years ago the forest primeval stood where now stands their brave, well-built town, with its 30,000 inhabitants. The phenomenally rapid growth of the place has been due very largely — almost entirely — to the enterprise of that exceedingly enterprising railway company the Canadian-Pacific. The story 06 the building of this railway through some of tho most difficult country in the world, and! the benefit* it has conferred upon Canada, reads like a romance. " Villages and towns, and even cities, followed close upon tho heels of the line-builders ; the forests were cleared away, the prairie's soil was turned over, mines were opened ; and even, before the last rail was laid in place the completed! sections were carrying a large and profitable traffic." Vancouver is the terminus of the railway. Like our own Dunedin, it is built on a hill, or rather a number of hills, only, the hills on which the city reste are not so high as those of Dunedin, while the hills, or rather mountains, in the near distance are very much higher. The surroundings reminded me of our own tjueenstown, but* they are even more striking. The great; forests that cloth* the lower slopes are more attractive than the tussock that covers almosfi all the mountains of the Wakatipu region. The town itself is well built; the streets) are almost as wide as those of Invercarguljl the shops are large and well furnished, ana lit at night in a great many instances by electricity. Here, as in Victoria — and indeed! in every city I visited on my travels, — the electric tramway is in evidence. I Had to come back to New Zealand to see the antiquated horse-cars. In some* respects wo are 1 a very progressive people; in other respects we are behind the age. With the exception of the tramways, however, there! was nothing in the centre of the atj that would strike a Dunedinite aa dif-t ferent from his usual purroundings, except in the suburbs and residential area/There it was very easy to realise that one/ va9 not in Now Zealand or Australia. 16 would be an interesting question to consider! what determines the shape men give to thd houses they live in and the colours with! which they paint them. Both the shape and! colour of the Vancouver dwelling-houses*

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struct me as strange, fantastic sometimes, but always interesting. The colours are mostly of a dark tint, harmonising well with the grand, sombre forests that stretch away from the city on every hand.